For Abington, new year, better result

Abington’s lack of tournament experience didn’t play a factor as the Green Wave advanced to Friday night’s quarterfinal round.

Peter Badavas

A year ago, the Abington High School boys basketball team finished the regular season 19-1 and entered the MIAA Div. 3 South Sectional as the No. 1 seed before losing to Foxboro in the first round.

This year, the Green Wave entered Wednesday night’s first-round matchup against Norton as the seventh seed with a 14-6 record, having graduated 12 seniors and returning only one player from last year in sophomore guard Kristian LaPointe.

Abington’s lack of tournament experience didn’t play a factor as the Green Wave advanced to Friday night’s quarterfinal round against South Shore League champion Norwell by defeating Norton, 57-44.

“We graduated 12 seniors last year, and I sensed we’d be a better team than one would think with one returning player,” said Abington coach Don Byron. “The thing is it’s very good to finish second in the league and get a home game, and we achieved that. Now to achieve this win with a lot of young kids is very comforting.”

Abington (15-6) wasn’t the only team with limited tournament experience on the court as Norton was making its first tournament appearance in five years after placing second in the Tri-Valley Conference with a 13-7 record.

With the lack of tournament experience, one would think the two teams would come out cautious, but that certainly wasn’t the case as both teams came out aggressively on both sides of the ball.

Norton, led by junior center Darren Doucette, who had a game-high 21 points and 15 rebounds, took a quick 13-12 advantage to end the first quarter.

Abington used a 9-2 run to end the first half with a 28-26 lead, despite Doucette’s 17 points and 10 rebounds in the half.

The second half was a different story as the Green Wave switched to a matchup zone defense to try and contain Duquette. That paid dividends as Abington used a 13-2 run to build a 41-30 advantage , with ten minutes to play in which the Lancers could never catch-up.

“I thought the second-half we did a nice job defensively,” said Byron. “We did a much better job in identifying Doucette, and making sure he gets the attention he deserved.”

Norton head coach Mark Liberatore agreed that was the difference in the game.

“They stayed in a match-up zone and took Darren out of the game, by packing it in down low, and we didn’t make many outside shots. We’re usually a better 3-point shooting team, but when they started going down it was already too late. I thought that was the story tonight,” he said.

The story of the night besides containing Doucette for Abington was the play of sophomore point guard Kristian LaPointe who filled the stat sheet with12 points, seven rebounds, seven assists , and five steals as he led the second-half attack.

“Kristian is the key. I thought he was terrific. All of the sudden he was involved on the offensive side of the ball, when he helped force turnovers and was in transition, and our defense helped create a little bit of offense,” Byron said.

LaPointe helped force the Lancers into 15 second-half turnovers and was the key to the 13-2 run which broke the game open.

The run started with a jumper by sophomore Ryan Chamber (10 points), and then was followed with the only Lancer bucket of the run on a lay-up by Doucette.

Abington scored the next eleven points as La Pointe accounted for two jumpers in the lane before finding Chamber for a lay-up to make the score 36-30.

Junior forward Brian Kurowski (team-high 15 points) added two-free-throws, before LaPointe converted on a fast-break lay-up, and junior center Chris Tighe (11 points) ended the run with a free-throw, to make the lead 41-30.

As for Norton, although there season ends with a first round loss, it can be seen as a victory of sorts according to Liberatore.

“This is our first time in the tourney in five years, and our seniors deserve a lot of the credit. We were in last place two years ago and for us to finish second in our league and make the tournament is a credit to these kids,” he said.